I've recently purchased a scanner (I've been a ham operator for a while, but this is my first scanner that cost more than £30 )

I'm just wondering if something is possible with this scanner that was available on my (much older) second-hand Alinco DJ-X3.

When scanning with the Alinco, it will pause on a signal for a few seconds, and then resume scanning - regardless of whether or not the signal has stopped - great if you just want to see what's on the air at the moment.

With the Uniden, however, the scanner will hold on a signal until it stops - which is great when listening to people talking - but when scanning a wide range of frequencies or in a noisy place, it's constantly holding local noise sources - requiring me to either lock out the frequency or to skip onto the next manually.

Is there a way around this or to replicate this functionality in the Uniden? Or am I stuck with the hold-on-signal functionality

m0lsx wrote:I too have a 3500 & an X3. And to the best of my knowledge the ability to skip past a channel in use after a few seconds is not available on the 3500.

Ah, I feared that to be the case! Oh well, still a good little unit despite it's occasional flaws (like it's proprietary USB cable... there's absolutely no need for a proprietary serial connector in this day and age - we invented USB (the "U" stands for "Universal") for a reason (sorry, I'll skip the electrical engineering rant )

As an aside, do you reckon it'd be worth adding a discriminator tap? Or would I be better just using my ham rig wired up to the computer, despite it only covering HF, 6m,VHF and UHF?

Discriminator taps are ALWAYS worth adding if you can. The only issue is that space is in short supply in these handhelds so you can loose the headphone socket which is not very helpful, especially when you consider the speaker is the weakest component in a 3500.

I was under the impression that the disciminator mod for the 3500XLT preserved earphone function (in one of the ears) since it uses the middle ring on the socket (and not the whole socket)? Take it that's not the case ?

I suppose I could always (space permitting) replace the existing 3-pole socket (that is the pin in use will have GND, Left-speaker, Right-speaker) with a 4-pole socket so as to preserve the audio function - OR - mod in another socket (I'm an electrical engineer, you'd be amazed at how much of my gear has sprouted extra switches and sockets over time - then again, I'm a ham as well, so maybe that wouldn't amaze you in you the slightest xD)

All depends on how much internal space there is, I suppose - I can live with losing audio in one earpiece - but not both. I regularly use it in public and don't want to annoy everybody around me! I may like the occasional "chuppa-chuppa-chuppa-chuppa-chuppa" of a power supply or the squeal of digital data - but I'm not sure the folk at the local coffee shop will